Looting Playing Cards
Either the joker dropped from the eerie entity behind this, or there was no joker.
If there was no joker, the king of diamonds was the highest card he had.
He had four playing cards in total: the king of diamonds Moonlit Night had given him, a queen of spades, a jack of hearts, and a ten of diamonds.
These were the highest cards he had managed to collect, but they still weren't enough to be sure.
Plenty of cards were higher than his: three kings, three queens, three jacks, and three tens. He still had no idea how the aces and twos ranked, either.
An Ying closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. When he opened them again, his pink eyes were full of helplessness. He disliked this kind of uncertainty; it made him feel very insecure.
He would rather have something more direct. Even being besieged by eerie entities would be better than this. His luck had never been good.
The host on the stage said, "One minute left on the countdown. Guests who haven't submitted a card, please hurry."
An Ying finally handed a queen to the NPC. Without looking at anyone else, he made the most of the time to recover his strength.
In this game, he finally didn't have to suffer under the rule that said he couldn't rest for more than five minutes. He could rest in peace for a while, even if it was only ten minutes.
When the countdown ended, the lights over the area in front of them suddenly went dark. An Ying narrowed his eyes and clearly saw a huge, mottled cage of crisscrossing steel bars appear in the darkness.
Something flashed before his eyes. He felt as though he were sitting on a conveyor belt, being pulled rapidly forward. In an instant, thick, closely spaced vertical steel bars appeared before him, along with the equally bewildered face of a man opposite him.
...This eerie place's teleportation didn't even give any warning?
Looking out from inside the cage, he found that the other people's faces were no longer clear; the view had been deliberately blurred. The light outside the cage was bright, making the inside seem even dimmer.
An Ying and the young man opposite him sat in chairs fixed to the floor. Before them was a round table covered with a red velvet cloth, with two familiar playing cards lying facedown on it. Their limbs were locked in small cages of air, allowing them only limited movement.
"Congratulations to guests number 1 and number 30 on being matched! Please turn over the cards in front of you to decide who wins this round!"
"The winner has the right to take all of the loser's playing cards!"
The host stood outside the cage, speaking excitedly as he enthusiastically tried to stir up the crowd. The guests, however, silently watched the two people in the cage, hoping to spot some rule they had missed.
"Now, turn over your cards!"
The young man opposite An Ying dragged his feet, unwilling to turn his card over. An Ying, however, had already flipped his card decisively: the queen of spades.
He didn't think he would lose this match. The young man looked familiar to An Ying; he was one of the "veteran players" who had entered at the beginning, and he was unlikely to have a high card.
Sure enough, the young man's expression changed. He snatched the card off the table and clutched it in his hand. "I'm not playing anymore! I'm not playing anymore! I'm not playing my card!"
It seemed his card was lower than An Ying's.
An Ying was neither particularly happy nor particularly upset. He simply took his card back and put it away, so this eerie venue wouldn't swallow it up later.
"I saw it! His card looked like the queen of spades!" said someone with enhanced eyesight.
"That high?"
"If I ran into him, I'd definitely lose too..."
The young man gripped his card tightly and refused to let go, but the match wasn't over, so he couldn't escape.
The host paid no attention to his shouting, and the people below the stage watched him as though they were used to it. After so many years of eerie instances, they had seen every kind of person.
A life was struggling. They wouldn't mock him, but they wouldn't risk saving him, either.
The instant the countdown for playing a card ended, the man turned into a cloud of bloody mist in front of An Ying. A rich, sweet smell drifted to his nose, making him a little nauseous.
A playing card fell to the floor. An Ying wiped the blood from his face and felt the restraints around him disappear. He stood up and glanced at the card on the ground. It was a seven of diamonds.
The higher a card's rank, the harder the eerie entity was to deal with. This seven of diamonds was probably his team's loot. It wasn't low, but he had been unlucky enough to run into An Ying.
[You may loot your opponent's playing cards]
"I refuse to loot," An Ying said.
The words in blood disappeared, and the host's voice rang out. "Congratulations to guest number 1 on his victory, making him the winner of this match! Unfortunately, he chose not to pick up his opponent's playing card. Did he think it was too low? What an arrogant choice."
An "arrogant" Ying was teleported back to his place. He rolled his eyes at the host's obvious attempt to stir up trouble.
The second person to take the stage was the woman with the large red saber on her back, whom An Ying had noticed before. He remembered that her name was Chen Xiu, a name that had nothing in common with her flamboyant appearance.
Chen Xiu appeared in the cage with a grim expression. She had two cards, but one was a six of hearts and the other a four of diamonds, both pitifully low.
When she saw her opponent appear, however, she suddenly felt relieved and began to look forward to the match.
Her opponent was the first man who had cheated to snatch a card. Although he still hadn't been punished by the rules, she held on to a sliver of hope.
"Congratulations to guests number 2 and number 44 on being matched! Please turn over the cards in front of you to decide who wins this round!"
Chen Xiu turned hers over: the six of hearts.
Guest number 44 turned his over: the seven of spades.
The seven of spades?
Guest number 44 held up his card triumphantly. An Ying could see it clearly: Qin Rang had a card just like it. It seemed the ranks of the cards in the different game venues weren't connected.
Only a little higher than hers?
Chen Xiu went pale. Was she really that unlucky?
"Seven of spades against six of hearts. Congratulations to guest number 44 on your victory!"
He actually succeeded!
Everyone turned their eyes to An Ying. There was no punishment for cheating as he had claimed!
"Deceitful liar."
Number 44 wore an arrogant expression on the stage, but before he could get up, the host's tone suddenly turned icy.
"But—we have found that guest number 44 cheated. We now strip this guest of his status and punish him!"
Number 44 hurriedly said, "No, that's not—"
"Pfft—"
He vomited a mouthful of blood. Looking down in disbelief, he saw several ghost hands tearing through his chest. His body was quickly ripped into countless pieces by the ghost hands, staining the red tabletop an even brighter shade.
Chen Xiu kept her eyes closed until the sound of flesh being torn apart stopped. Only then did she open them and stand up, looking at the two playing cards on the floor.
One was the seven of spades number 44 had left behind, and the other was the seven of diamonds. The seven of diamonds had been left over from the previous match, and it was still there.
[You may loot your opponent's playing cards]
"Loot them all."
[Looting successful. Congratulations, guest, you have obtained the seven of spades and the seven of diamonds]
Chen Xiu returned, her face full of joy, while the others looked even more grim.
The games continued. Most people had only one playing card; some had two or three, but they were few.
If a winner whose cards were looted lost their only card, they would end up like number 30, dissolving into bloody mist. If they still had cards in hand, they would only have one loss recorded and could still return safely.
The first round ended in just half an hour.